Apple releases ResearchKit medical research framework


Apple Tuesday announces its open ResearchKit framework is now available. The framework enables doctors, scientists, and researchers to gather data from research volunteers using iOS devices.

The open source framework allows any medical researcher to take advantage of the initial modules in ResearchKit to study health and wellness and better understand disease. Developers can also build new modules based on the open source code and contribute them to ResearchKit. The initial customizable modules address the most common elements found in research studies--participant consent, surveys and active tasks.

ResearchKit seems a pretty compelling initiative to assist in data gathering for any number of health research topics. Basically researchers can utilize already deployed diagnostic hardware in the way of volunteer's iPhones, for example. Also Apple's install base makes it easier to field participants for research.